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Kael'thas Sunstrider (tactics)
This article is about the in-game raid boss. For character biography and Warcraft III appearances, see Kael'thas Sunstrider. For the character's appearance in the Magisters' Terrace instance, see Kael'thas Sunstrider (Magisters' Terrace tactics). Kael'thas Sunstrider is the fourth and final boss encounter of the Eye in Tempest Keep. It's a rather complicated fight with five phases where all raid members have to learn how to survive. Updates in 2.4 In Patch 2.4, Kael'thas no longer is needed for attunement to Battle for Mount Hyjal. In addition, it will be possible to go directly to Kael'thas without first killing all other bosses in Tempest Keep. The number of Tier 5 chest tokens he drops will be increased from two to three. Abilities All mobs in this fight are immune to Taunt, Crowd Control and all snare or slow effects. ;Thaladred the Darkener * ~560k HP * Melee – 3-4k on plate plus 2.5k every tick for 12 seconds * Gaze – Fixes aggro to a random person in raid; 9 second cooldown * Psychic Blow – 4-5k damage plus knockback to his current target, 30 yard range * Silence – Silences anyone within 8 yards ;Lord Sanguinar * ~560k HP *'Melee' – 3-4k on plate *'Bellowing Roar' – 35 yard AoE fear centered on himself, 1.5 second cast, no agro reset ;Grand Astromancer Capernian * ~400k HP * Fireball – 6-7k single-target fire damage * Conflagration – Randomly targets players within 30 yards; causes disorient effect with 600-900 damage per second plus 300 damage per second too all players within 8 yards of the debuffed player. Caperian will not attack conflagurated players * Arcane Explosion – 4.5k Arcane damage plus knockback and slow debuff; only case if players are in melee range ;Master Engineer Telonicus * ~560k HP * Bomb – 7-9k fire in a small AoE, centered on current target location, 1.5 second cast * Remote Toy – 60 sec debuff placed on a random player, periodically stuns the affected player for 4 seconds ;Kael'thas Sunstrider * ~3.6 million HP * Melee – ~4k on plate * Fireball – 2.5 sec cast, ~16-20k fire damage, interruptible * Flamestrike – 3 sec cast, ~3k per second AoE for 10 sec * Summon Phoenix – periodically summons a Phoenix * Arcane Disruption – 1750-2250 Arcane damage and a 10 second disorient to every raid member, 20 sec cooldown * Shock Barrier – a shield which absorbs 80,000 damage, lasts 10 seconds and prevents spells from being interrupted Phase 4 specific abilities: * Mind Control – Mind controls 2-3 people in the raid * Pyroblast – 4 sec cast, 45k-55k fire damage, interruptible, 60 sec cooldown; begins casting immediately after casting Shock Barrier Phase 5 specific abilities: * Gravity Lapse – All members of raid are teleported to him and then swim in the air for 30 sec * Nether Beam – 1850-2150 arcane damage to a random target, jumps to nearby players, damage doubled for each jump (similar to C'Thuns eye beam) * Nether Vapor – Small black clouds floating in the air near Kael'thas. If touched they add a stacking debuff which reduces max health by 10% each time, stacking up to 9 times, to 90% reduction. Raid Composition * Main Tank * Fire Resist Tank (~150 for use as Conflag target during P1 and Phoenix tank in P4/5) * 2 Off-Tanks * 6-7 Healers * 5-6 Melee * 10-11 Ranged This fight favors ranged DPS due to Thaladred and Capernian, as well as strategies involving Shock Barrier/Pyro's when they occur in conjunction with Phoenix eggs. Phase 1: Introducing the Advisors The raid can leisurely kill each advisor. Their corpses should be placed in well-defined spots, because later they get resurrected, and then the pressure is very high. The advisors engage in the following order: * Thaladred the Darkener He "sets his gaze on" one raid member at all times, and walks towards that target. He moves somewhat slower than run speed, so his target should kite him while ranged DPS bring him down. Everybody should stay well away, because the next gaze target should always be in a safe distance from him (over 30 yards would be best to avoid Psychic Blow) * Lord Sanguinar is a simple tank and spank boss, made interesting only by his fear ability (which isn't too bad since it doesn't reset agro) * Grand Astromancer Capernian Her abilities force everybody to stay over 30 yards away from her - Conflagrate must be avoided by everybody except her tanks. One possible setup is to have a fire resist tank stand rather close to hear (about 15 yards, still outside Arcane Explosion range) to eat the conflagrations, while a Warlock kills her from 30 yards away. Such a setup needs two healers on the warlock, and one on the fire tank. The warlock tanking her cannot have Nether Protection (talent), or she will melee him after a immune cast. Alternately, she can be tanked by two warlocks which take turns - when one is conflagrated, the other takes over. * Master Engineer Telonicus' is probably the least dangerous of the advisors. In phase 1 the remote toy debuff is nasty, on one of the tanks it can cause a wipe. Therefore killing him should be delayed until no tank has that debuff. Phase 2: The Weapons After all advisors are dead, Kael'thas summons his arsenal of seven legendary weapons. By killing and looting these weapons all raid members can equip themselves with legendary weapons for the rest of the fight (the weapons are multi-drop but unique; one player can theoretically pick up one copy of all of them). Killing the weapons is a mixture of AoE and focus fire. There should be an AoE kill zone, where most of the weapons are held, while the remaining DPS concentrate on one weapon after the other. Here's an overview of the weapons in a reasoable kill order: ; ~210k HP Has a Multi-Shot attack, drops agro if any melee or pet attack it. Preferably tanked by a hunter facing it away from the raid to avoid Multi-Shot hitting others. This is the most dangerous weapon and should be killed first by all hunters and ranged DPS which do not take part in the AoE ; ~170k HP Low melee damage, attacks with Frostbolt and Frost Nova. It likes to cast a Frost Nova, run away 10-15 yards and then start to Frostbolt. It's a highly desirable item because its "uses" ability grants immunity to the Remote Toy debuff, and it increases the damage output of casters. It also has low HP and dies faster than the other weapons ; ~280k HP Low melee damage. Heals itself and friendly targets, which must be interrupted. The melee damage dealers should control and kill this ; ~210k HP Hits normal but attacks very fast. Has a Thrash ability (similar to Prince Malchezzar's phase 2 ability) that grants it two extra attacks ; ~290k HP Hits very hard. ; ~230k HP Frequently Whirlwinds, which one-shots any non-tanks. Must be tanked slightly away from the other weapons, near the edge or even outside the AoE zone. Not very useful for most raid members, therefore it's not a problem if it doesn't die quickly. ; ~290k HP Does high damage. Has a "shield spike"-like ability which when activated can reflect a lot of damage to a fast attacking melee DPSer. Also has much higher HP and armor than the other weapons. The tanks can manage phase 3 without it, but they must absolutely have it to tank Kael'thas in phase 4. Weapon tank list: *Main Tank: Axe *Main Tank: Sword + Shield *Offtank #1: Mace + Dagger *Offtank #2: Staff *Hunter: Bow The weapons corpses despawn after 60 seconds, and the looted weapons disappear after 15 minutes from being looted. Players also lose them when releasing (after a death) or when the encounter is reset. It's not a big problem to have two weapons alive when phase 3 starts, namely the and are not really needed early. Phase 3: The Advisors, Reloaded Exactly two minutes after the start of Phase 2, Kael'thas resurrects all the advisors at once. The advisor tanks and their healers should start to move to their assigned advisors (or rather their corpse) about 10 seconds before the end of Phase 2, so that they can immediately pick up the advisors. Advisor tank list: *Main Tank: Sanguinar *Off-tank: Telonicus *Warlock/fire resist Tank: Capernian Kill order Thaladred and Capernian should be avoided by melee. All four advisors can be safely attacked by ranged. Since Thaladred is the biggest nuissance, ranged DPS should concentrate on him first. One melee damage dealer with the should put the debuff on him, but very carefully - the player must be highly aware of imminent gaze shifts, move away *before* each shift, and get back in only when a different target gets the gaze than himself. All other melee damage dealers should concentrate on Sanguinar first and Telonicus second. After Thaladred is down, ranged DPS can either help the melee group at Sanguinar, or start on Capernian. This decision depends on several factors, mainly whether the melee group is strong enough to kill Sanguinar on their own, or the ranged DPS have to help. When all other adds are down, Telonicus is finished off last by all damage dealers together. Phase 4: Taking matters into one's own hands Three minutes after the start of Phase 3, Kael'thas himself enters the fight. If only one advisor is still up at that point, a smooth kill is close. If two or more adds are still up, a wipe is highly probable. Fireball should be interrupted as much as possible. Mind Control'''led raid members should best be sheeped. It's also possible to use the with low damage skills (e.g. Hamstring, Shiv) to dispel the MC. Stuning is not always effective because the buff from the may be in effect. '''Flamestrike MUST be avoided at all costs by everyone in the raid. Set Spell Details to High to see the glow on the ground, which is visible during the 3 sec cast time before it hits. The AoE looks similar to a Paladins Consecration. Every 30-40 seconds Kael'thas summons a Phoenix. The graphic effect for this summon is identical to Flamestrike, however the cast time is much shorter, and it deals no damage. Phoenix handling After its birth, the phoenix can either be kited by a ranged damage dealer, or simply be tanked by the allocated fire resist tank. It continually uses a hellfire ability which damages itself (5% HP) and everybody around it for ~3,500 fire damage (post-Infernal Protection mitigation) per second, resulting in a 20 second life span. Upon its death, it will do a final large knockback within melee range and then turn into a Phoenix egg. This egg has ~70k HP and must quickly be killed, else it spawns a new Phoenix after 15 seconds. Pyroblast Every 60 seconds Kael'thas casts an invariable sequence of Shock Barrier, 3 successive Pyroblasts and an Arcane Disruption. Even with the all the possible mitigations in effect, Pyroblast damage can be up to 23,265 fire damage. Tanks with the can use it to absorb one Pyroblast. If the damage dealers are up to it, the best course of action is to burn down the shield fast enough to interrupt the second pyroblast. Failing this, a tank with ~20k HP can just barely survive one pyroblast (with the Infernal Protection buff from the , a Fire Protection Potion or Nightmare Seed and PW:Shield). If a raid consistently fails to interrupt the second pyroblast, it's possible to have the tank eat the first one and absorb the second. This gives the healers enough time to bring the tank up to survive the immediately following arcane disruption. The third pyroblast can always be interrupted, because the shock barrier autmatically wears off after 10 seconds, which leaves 2 seconds cast time remaining. Event Cycle In summary, there's a 60 second rotation which takes place over the entire phase: 0sec->20sec(MC + Arcane Disruption)->40sec(Phoenix + MC + Arcane Disruption)->60sec(Shock Barrier + 3 Pyroblasts + Arcane Disruption). Flamestrike can happen all the time. Phase 5: True Power Once Kael'thas' health reaches 50%, he does a short cutscene and becomes invulnerable for a while. During this time, all remaining Phoenixes and their eggs should be killed. With unlucky timing it's possible that he reaches 50% just as he begins a pyroblast cycle, and thus become invulnerable (and truly uninterruptible) while casting 3 pyroblasts (= wipe). Although this is a rare event, it doesn't hurt to pay attention to this possibility, and slow down some DPS if it could occur. Gravity Lapse In Phase 4, he no longer uses Mind Control and Pyroblast, instead he regularly casts a combination of Gravity Lapse, Nether Vapor and Nether Beam. Gravity Lapse teleports the entire raid to Kaael'thas' position and up in the air from there. In order to avoid the Nether Vapor debuff and Nether Beam chaining, the raid must move away from Kael and spread out, best in three dimensions. Near the end of the 30 sec duration, people should try to keep close to the ground to minimise falling damage, but must not get too low, else they take damage and get launched back up high in the air. Kael'thas continuously uses Shock Barrier during a Gravity Lapse, and the phoenixes go into a kind of evade mode. There's no point in trying to deal damage during that time. At the end of a Gravity Lapse, Kael'thas and the phoenixes return to their prior targets, there's no agro drop. Mages should Counterspell Kaels first Fireball so that he runs to the MT. The raid should initially be careful with DPS because the tank needs to build some rage first. This is a good opportunity to burn down the phoenix and his egg. Enrage Kael'thas has no built-in hard enrage timer. The only problem is that the legendary weapons looted in phase 2 despawn 15 minutes after acquiring them. It's possible to bring him down using normal equipment, but the strain on the healers caused by the Arcane Disruptions will eventually be too much. Notes *It's a good idea to burn Heroism/Bloodlust prior to phase 4, so that Kael'thas can't buff himself when MCing a shaman. Some raids prefer to go all-out at the start of Phase 2, others wait until Phase 3. Quotes Intro: * Energy. Power. My people are addicted to it. Their dependence made manifest after the Sunwell was destroyed. Welcome to the future...a pity you're too late to stop it. No one can stop me now. Selama ashal'anore. Advisor Introductions (in order of appearance): Thaladred the Darkener * Let us see how your nerves hold up against the Darkener, Thaladred. Lord Sanguinar * You have persevered against some of my best advisors. But none can withstand the might of the Bloodhammer. Behold, Lord Sanguinar. Grand Astromancer Capernian * Capernian will see to it that your stay here is a short one. Master Engineer Telonicus * Well done. You have proven worthy to test your skills against my Master Engineer, Telonicus. Summoning Weapons: * As you can see, I have many weapons in my arsenal. Resurrecting Advisors: * Perhaps I underestimated you. It would be unfair to make you fight all four Advisors at once, but...fair treatment was never shown to my people. I'm just returning the favor. Engaging combat (phase 4): * Alas, sometimes one must take matters into one's own hands. Balamore shanal! Mind Control: * Obey me. * Bow to my will. Summoning phoenix: * Anara'nel belore! * By the power of the sun! Enrage (phase 5): * I have not come this far to be stopped! The future I have planned will not be jeopardized! Now, you will taste true power! Casting Gravity Lapse: * Having trouble staying grounded? * Let us see how you fare when your world is turned upside down. Killing a player: * You will not prevail. * You gambled...and lost. Death: * For...Quel...thalas! Loot First kills Movies External links Category:Blood elves Category:Stubs/Strategy Category:Bosses Category:The Eye mobs